A Roman Catholic Blog Investigating the Traditional Catholic Movement, Both Real and False, and the True Hierarchy of the Universal Church as It Exists Today

28 December, 2007

Virgo Maria and the Secret Connections of the SSPX

Virgo Maria is a traditional Catholic site in France, run by a man who was ordained through the SSPX and left it after discovering the SSPX's many strange inconsistencies and connections. The site is a treasure cache of information (in French) that every Catholic and every SSPX supporter should know about. If even one fact on that site is true, the SSPX should be completely avoided by good Catholics; if all of it is false, every detail on the site should be openly addressed and refuted.

But you will not see this information published or addressed anywhere else -- and especially not in the pages of Traditio, Catholic Family News or even by the "hard-liners" of the Most Holy Family Monastery.

Recently, a great deal of information has been published on Virgo Maria concerning the strong Rosicrucian connections of Richard Williamson, "bishop" of the SSPX.

The connections between the SSPX and anti-Catholic secret societies run very deep. Lefebvre himself, writing in the Angelus, chuckled off the possibility that his own priestly and episcopal ordinations were invalid (since they were performed by a devil worshiper) by saying that this devil worshiper surely had the "proper intent" of the Roman Catholic Church -- cleverly forgetting the fact that the question of proper intent is only reserved for members of the Catholic Church. A person who joins an anti-Catholic secret society for the purposes of worshipping Satan is not a member of the Catholic Church, so his intentions, as they were, are irrelevant. (Afterward, when approached by a real bishop who offered to clear up the matter by conditionally re-ordaining him, Lefebvre quickly declined -- he didn't want to mess with the chance of validity!)

The SSPV, Anthony Cekada, and others of their ilk will never address these issues, because it will raise the question of the validity of their own ordinations. Traditio will not write about it because it appears that their purpose is to encourage the so-called "conservative" wing of the SSPX (which includes none other than Richard Williamson himself).

Curiously, the Diamond Brothers of the Most Holy Family Monastery don't mention these facts in any of their works, not even in their special critiques of the SSPX, all of which oddly focus on the many un-Catholic influences and Novus Ordo practices of the SSPX's current activities, not in the validity of the SSPX's orders themselves. When questioned on this matter, they at first ignored our question but finally told us that they believe Marcel Lefebvre was a real priest and bishop because heretics can validly ordain -- when we pointed out that our contention was something very different, that we are not saying Lefebvre was ordained by a heretic but by a man who was never a member of the Catholic Church, their reply was quick and to the point and can be summarized as thus: it doesn't matter; people who were never members of the Catholic Church can validly ordain.

Yes, but ordain what? Can the acolytes of Lucifer validly make Catholic priests and bishops?

14 December, 2007

2008: The Year of Mass Idolatry

If you read the daily Commentaries of Traditio, you will see how that site's operators frequently rail against "presbyters," which are the clergy of the post-Vatican II Church -- they do not have the power to remit sins or consecrate a Host. Traditio frequently draws the distinction between these powerless presbyters and geniune Catholic priests, who have been sent from God by way of the Church.

Any good Traditional Catholic publication should draw this distinction, especially as so many "traditional" Masses today are given by these presbyters. But a fact you will not read about in Traditio is how the Priestly Society of St. Pius X is now engaging in a massive effort to encourage presbyters around the world to join its cause and simulate the Latin Mass before unsuspecting Catholics looking for a genuine Sacrament.

The SSPX has prepared a DVD and printed literature to show these unordained laymen how to simulate the Mass. SSPX head Bernard Fellay recently claimed that a thousand German presbyters in the post-Vatican II church requested these materials, and the SSPX's Richard Williamson has been in Italy and around the world, distributing this material to laymen of the post-Vatican II church.

In the game of fooling Catholics, Fellay is frequently painted as the SSPX's "liberal" to Williamson's "conservative." This has worked for a time, keeping many independent-minded traditional Catholics from rejecting the SSPX outright. But there is no truth in that -- Williamson, through his words and deeds, has engaged in many public heresies, which will be topics for future articles. And it was none other than Williamson himself who was personally responsible for ejecting SSPX priests who dared to say that they did not believe the Vatican II sacraments were valid.

Speaking of the post-Vatican II Conciliar Church in Italy, Richard Williamson recently proclaimed, "the SSPX has had to send out on request 600 DVD’s, soon 700, on how to celebrate the true Mass, nine out of ten of them to priests and seminarians."

There you have it -- the "conservative" "bishop" of the SSPX, Richard Williamson, on how he and his Society have assisted hundreds (now thousands) of laymen around the world to simulate the Mass.

This act can only have two purposes:


  1. Solicit money and time from good and unsuspecting Catholics around the world, and
  2. Expose these unsuspecting Catholics to idolatry while keeping them away from genuine Catholic worship (even if that worship is reduced to staying at home with a missal).


Good Catholics have always been able to avoid the world's idolatry because (1) it never claimed to be Catholic and (2) it is so different from their own true worship: they know that a Protestant or non-Christian religious service is not the Catholic Mass. They also know that the Novus Ordo liturgy is not the Mass. But how can they distinguish genuine worship from idolatry when something that closely resembles the Traditional Latin Mass is offered as the Mass by an unconsecrated layman?

It is a fact that the SSPX, since its inception under Lefebvre, has always taken in these Novus Ordo presbyters without always conditionally re-ordaining them. But this new effort on the part of the SSPX, who now offer these materials free of charge for any Novus Ordo 'priest', is probably the greatest act of coordinated world-wide idolatry since the Second Vatican Council. It is clearly heretical, schismatic and evil -- and so no matter what we might think of the SSPX or its individual members, Canon Law forbids us to approach them for Sacraments or even associate with them.

12 December, 2007

Modernist Family News -- A Warning To Good-Hearted Catholics

One of the most popular and high-profile publications for Traditional Catholics is the Catholic Family News. Most good-hearted Traditionalists, seeing articles on Pius XII, the Traditional Latin Mass, and Catholicism as it existed before 1958, assume that the Catholic Family News is both Catholic and traditional.

We contend that it is neither, and offer these simple facts for the reader to consider:

The Catholic Family News is owned and published by Nicholas Gruner, the famed "Fatima Priest" and publisher of Fatima Crusader and many other fund-raising publications and ventures.

However, "Father Gruner" is a double misnomer. That is because Gruner was ordained in the New Rite of Paul VI. Gruner was never conditionally re-ordained in the old rite; he believes in the new rite [but apparently does not believe in making this fact widely known to potential donors]. So if you are a Traditional Catholic and do not believe in the validity of the new sacraments, to you Nicholas Gruner is not a priest. But Gruner's non-ordination is a double misnomer, because the Conciliar Church rejects him as well -- if you believe in the Conciliar Church, if that is your religion and you believe in its sacraments, you are also forbidden to approach Gruner for your sacraments. In the words of the Apostolic Nuncio, Gabriel Montavio, speaking with the full authority of his church and religion: "Nicholas Gruner is not a priest in good standing with the Roman Catholic Church."

Catholic Family News uses, writes about, and features many of these New Order "priests": the late "Fr" Hesse, "Fr" Paul Kramer, Stephen Zigrang [a Novus Ordo presbyter serving as "priest" for the SSPX at the Queen of Angels chapel in Texas], Lawrence Smith, Patrick Perez, and Paul Stretenovic. Smith, Stretenovic, and Zigrang were ordained in the new rite, not the old.

It is this abominable Evil, sending laymen out to administer false "sacraments" to [and collecting money from] the unsuspecting Faithful, that the Catholic Family News is all about -- and what they laughably call defending Catholic Tradition without compromise. They misspelled "defeating"!

Traditio's Historical Amnesia on the SSPX

One of the most blatant and frequent errors that the Traditio site espouses concerns the Society of St. Pius X. Traditio paints a picture of the SSPX's founder, Marcel Lefebvre, as a "saintly" man who ceaselessly defended Catholic tradition against the New Order. When confronted with the SSPX's constant capitulations to the same New Order today, Traditio blames it on the SSPX's current Superior General, Bernard Fellay.

However, Fellay is not out of line with the SSPX's historic positions or its founder at all! In fact, it is Lefebvre's "ambivalence" toward the New Order that many of his followers left his organization in the 1970s and 80s.

A revealing post was made in Traditio's Commentaries for November 2007. There, the November 22 entry accuses Fellay of "selling out" the SSPX to the Novus Ordo Church.

In this entry, Traditio makes eight claims against Fellay, accusing him of implementing eight elements of the New Order Religion inside the Society. All eight of these claims are false, of course -- the SSPX held all of these positions long before Fellay ever became Superior General. But Traditio paints Lefebvre as someone who rejected the Novus Ordo. He voted for it, never repealed that, and he insisted to the end that (a) the New Order sacraments were valid and (b) the papal claimants of the Conciliar Church were valid. He never once suggested that the New Order liturgy or the papal claimants who implemented them were invalid. In fact, he ejected anyone from his Society who held either of these claims. It is not news that the SSPX uses men who were not ordained priests -- they did that from the beginning! On many occasions Lefebvre took in men ordained "priests" in the new rite of Paul VI and did not bother to re-ordain them conditionally in the old. This was, in fact, one reason for the highly publicized ejection of the nine priests who formed the SSPV. Richard Williamson, by his own admission, was responsible for this ejection.

So while Traditio is quick to show the many errors and heretical practices of today's SSPX, they purposefully make believe that these errors and practices were not also perpetrated by Lefebvre.

The reason that Traditio propogates this subtle error? It could be so that Catholics might continue to support the SSPX and push for its "conservative" wing, unaware that the SSPX has held these positions since its inception. If the SSPX's founder was a saintly hero, perhaps there is some good somewhere in the SSPX. But if the SSPX's founder was a sly and scheming heretic, it is a bad tree that is incapable of bearing good fruit. It is this fact, we contend, that Traditio does not want Catholics to know.

TRADITIO: Its Positions and Its Purpose


TRADITIO, the "Traditional Roman Catholic Network," has been online since 1994 and claims over 7 million visitors. It has a Library of FAQ files containing useful Catholic information [and misinformation], hosts the major Traditional Latin Mass directory [whose bulk of listings are for various non-TLM services, such as the SSPX's Modernized Mass of 1962], but is most well known for its Commentaries from the Mailbox, from which Catholic advice and information [and subtle mis-information] is dispensed daily.

The publishers of TRADITIO claim to be "several traditional Roman Catholic priests," yet they never identify themselves by name nor answer questions concerning their orders. The only name publicly associated with TRADITIO is one M.E. Morrison, and various Web sites report him being either an Old Catholic or an individual who sought ordination through other questionable and invalid means. One thing is clear: TRADITIO does not say who they are, how they are "Fathers" in the Roman Catholic Church, who ordained them. But we shall try to illuminate, by an examination of their Commentaries, what their motive and purpose might be.

The Catholic Body

This is the inauguration of THE CATHOLIC BODY, a new online publication dedicated to an inquisition of the state of the Universal Church today. There are many Traditionalists and groups who claim to be members of the Roman Catholic Church and even part of its Hierarchy.Which are Real and True? Which are False and outside the Church? And, if False, is it due to Error or are there other Motives?

IF THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH IS REAL AND TRUE, IT WILL PASS ALL EXAMINATIONS. IF ANY TRADITIONALIST GROUP IS A MEMBER OF THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH, ITS POSITION IN THAT CHURCH WILL BE DOUBTLESS AND WILL PASS ALL EXAMINATIONS.